LIVE! From City Lights

Mosab Abu Toha reading from "Forest of Noise: Poems"

Mosab Abu Toha reading from “Forest of Noise: Poems” by Mosab Abu Toha, published by Knopf Publishing Group You can purchase copies of “Forest of Noise: Poems” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/forest-of-noise-poems/ Originally broadcast via Zoom on Monday, November 4, 2024. Hosted by Peter Maravelis. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Daniel Borzutzky in conversation with Ricardo Alberto Maldonado

Daniel Borzutzky in conversation with Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, celebrating the publication of "The Murmuring Grief of the Americas" by Daniel Borzutzky, published by Coffee House Press You can purchase copies of "The Murmuring Grief of the Americas" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/murmuring-grief-of-the-americas/ Originally broadcast via Zoom on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. Hosted by Peter Maravelis. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Bushra Rehman in conversation with May-lee Chai

Bushra Rehman in conversation with May-lee Chai, celebrating the publication of "Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion" by Bushra Rehman, published by Flatiron Books. You can purchase copies of "Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-fiction/roses-in-the-mouth-of-a-lion-2/ Originally broadcast via Zoom on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. Hosted by Peter Maravelis. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Chukwuebuka Ibeh in conversation with francesca ekwuyasi

City Lights celebrates the publication of "Blessings," a novel by Chukwuebuka Ibeh, published by Doubleday. Purchase here: https://citylights.com/blessings/ Obiefuna has always been the black sheep of his family—sensitive where his father, Anozie, is pragmatic, a dancer where his brother, Ekene, is a natural athlete. But when Obiefuna’s father witnesses an intimate moment between his teenage son and another boy, his deepest fears are confirmed, and Obiefuna is banished to boarding school. As he navigates his new school’s strict hierarchy and unpredictable violence, Obiefuna both finds and hides who he truly is. Back home, his mother, Uzoamaka, must contend with the absence of her beloved son, her husband’s cryptic reasons for sending him away, and the hard truths that they’ve all been hiding from. As Nigeria teeters on the brink of criminalizing same-sex relationships, Obiefuna’s identity becomes more dangerous than ever before, and the life he wants drifts further out of reach. Set in post-military Nigeria and culminating in the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2013, "Blessings" is an elegant and exquisitely moving story that asks how to live freely in a country that forbids one’s truest self, and what it takes for love to flourish despite it all. Chukwuebuka Ibeh is a writer from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, born in 2000. His writing has appeared in McSweeney's, New England Review of Books and Lolwe, amongst others, and he is a staff writer at Brittle Paper. He was the runner-up for the 2021 J.F. Powers Prize for Fiction, was a finalist for the Gerald Kraak Award, and was profiled as one of the “Most Promising New Voices of Nigerian Fiction” by Electric Literature. He has studied creative writing under Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, and Tash Aw, and is currently a an MFA student at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. francesca ekwuyasi is a learner, artist, and storyteller born in Lagos, Nigeria. She was awarded the Writers Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers in 2022 for her debut novel, "Butter Honey Pig Bread" (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020). "Butter Honey Pig Bread" was also shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Dublin Literary Award. "Butter Honey Pig Bread" placed second on CBC’s "Canada Reads: Canada’s Annual Battle of the Books," where it was selected as one of five contenders in 2021 for “the one book that all of Canada should read.” francesca’s writing has appeared in the Malahat Review, Transition Magazine, Room Magazine, Brittle Paper, the Ex-Puritan, C-Magazine, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Canadian Art, Chatelain and elsewhere. Her short story, "Ọrun is Heaven" was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize. She co-authored, "Curious Sounds: A Dialogue in Three Movements" (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023), a multi-genre collaborative book with Roger Mooking. Originally broadcast via Zoom on Thursday, July 11, 2024. Hosted by Peter Maravelis. Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation. citylights.com/foundation/

Tarek El-Ariss

Tarek El-Ariss in conversation with Peter Maravelis, celebrating the publication of "Water on Fire: A Memoir of War" by Tarek El-Ariss, published by Other Press. Purchase here: https://citylights.com/middle-east/water-on-fire-memoir-of-war/ "Water on Fire" tells a story of immigration that starts in a Beirut devastated by the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90), continues with experiences of displacement in Europe and Africa, moves to northeastern American towns battered by lake-effect snow and economic woes, and ends in New York City on 9/11. A story of loss, but also of evolution, it models a kind of resilience inflected with humor, daring, and irreverence. Alternating between his perspective as a child and an adult, Tarek El-Ariss explores how we live with trauma, poignantly illustrating the profound impact of war on our perception of the world, our fears and longings. His memoir is at once historical and universal, intellectual and introspective, the outcome of a long and painful process of excavation that reveals internal turmoil and the predicament of conflict and separation. A contemporary “interpretation of dreams” dealing with monsters, invisible creatures, skin outbreaks, and the sea, it is a book about objects and elements, like water and fire, and about how encountering these elements triggers associations, connecting present and past, time and space. Tarek El-Ariss is the James Wright Professor and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College and was a Guggenheim Fellow (2021–22). Trained in philosophy, comparative literature, and visual and cultural studies at the American University of Beirut, the University of Rochester, and Cornell University, he is the author of "Trials of Arab Modernity: Literary Affects and the New Political" and "Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals: Arab Culture in the Digital Age," and editor of the MLA anthology "The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda." Originally broadcast via Zoom on Friday, May 17, 2024. Special thanks to Judith Gurewich. Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation. citylights.com/foundation/